Live data from Hacker News

Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

theguardian.com

151–160 of 1001 posts

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#151
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other extreme, Are media that spread misinformation without any due process are just protected indefinitely? Like in this very recent case: https://honestreporting.com/damage-done-how-al-jazeeras-fake... Edit: haaretz link: https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/2024-0...

[flagged]

> Words are not knifes. People eventually will adapt to lies and weird things. And truth will find a way.

In the meantime there could be a war [1].

[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/remember-the-maine-56...

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Qatar is the main funder of Hamas regime Iran is Hamas' main backer. Qatar funded Hamas with Israel's consent, so it's not really fair to hold this against Doha. (Their continuing to host Hamas' leadership is fair to criticise.)

In July 2017, former CIA director David Petraeus revealed that Qatar has hosted the Hamas leadership at the request of US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_and_state-sponsored_terr...

> Petraeus revealed that Qatar has hosted the Hamas leadership at the request of US

Sure. Hence why I qualified my statement with "continuing." Doha hosting Hamas in '17 was fine. Doha hosting them after October 7 is fair to criticise.

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#153

I'm not a fan of Al Jazeera myself but this sets a very bad precedent. Israel is winning the war but they are being very short sighted among the decisions they are making.

I wouldn't classify murdering 30k+ civilians (15k+ children), dropping bombs on entire families, being caught[0] executing civilians with drones in plain view, having israeli holocaust scholars and survivors describing israel's actions as "textbook-case of genocide"[1][2], the world seeing israel as an illegitimate pariah state, as "winning", but you do you.

[0] "Note that this footage permits no room for "it was a mistake," showing repeated, specifically-targeted strikes on the unarmed and even wounded. The sort of behavior the ICJ explicitly forbid in the genocide ruling against Israel." https://x.com/Snowden/status/1770936325996155290

[1] Gaza 'Textbook Case of GENOCIDE' - Holocaust Scholar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUeEnjULHe0

[2] Holocaust Survivor Tells Me: Israel Is Committing Genocide - w. Stephen Kapos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4PFmz4MNdg

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#154
post #21

Any regime that seeks to suppress the media can't be up to any good, IMO.

On the other extreme, Are media that spread misinformation without any due process are just protected indefinitely? Like in this very recent case: https://honestreporting.com/damage-done-how-al-jazeeras-fake... Edit: haaretz link: https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/2024-0...

All newspapers get things wrong some of the time. With the best of intentions and best of skills, it ... just happens because the world is just too complex to always be 100% accurate. Of course they should strive to be accurate all of the time, but we also need to be realistic. This applies even more to warzones.

What matters is how often this happens and what the response is when it happens. As far as I know, Al Jazeera is not significantly worse than anyone else here. There's a difference between "spreading misinformation" and "being wrong every once in a while".

The problem with sites like "honest reporting" is that they take these incidents, completely ignore (or outright defend) all the types their side has been wrong on this type of stuff, and then construct a narrative that "proves" that "the other side" is merely a malicious cluster of evil that seeks to spread evil for evil's sake. This is exactly the type of dehumanizing hyper-partisanship that got us in this mess in the first place.

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RT was heavily censored in the USA and is banned in several European countries. Press censorship is pretty much the norm in 'western democracies' similar to everywhere else.

> RT was heavily censored in the USA How heavily has RT been censored in the USA? Has the government ever censored it or pressured others to censor it, or is it just that links/rebroadcasts have been dropped by private entities of their own volition?

> How heavily has RT been censored in the USA?

It hasn't been. Probably more accurate to state that when it was carried on cable media they broadcast a bowdlerized version. Al Jazeera did the same thing when it was carried by cable/satellite in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_America

This was the RT channel you're probably thinking of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_America

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#156
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a very strange day yesterday: the whole week coverage had been building up to a meeting in Cairo, Hamas signalled they were going to accept the cease fire. Saturday AM EST, it was reported that Hamas confirmed they were going to accept the deal. By noon Saturday EST, the "Israel-Hamas War"...idk what to call it, live blog? collection-of-news headline?...was gone for the first time in months. Israel reporting (…

Netanyahu has also said that he intends to do an operation in Rafah regardless of whether Hamas gives up the remaining hostages. https://text.npr.org/1248276817

Israel's war aims have transparently been about both returning the hostages and removing Hamas from power.

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#157
post #43
post #15

I’m not sure about “dark day for the media” but it does feel like a dark day for Israel. Once you’ve established that the government can unilaterally ban a voice for reasons of “national security” you’ve essentially given them a free pass. As Americans living post-9/11 will know, “national security” is a deliberately elastic term that can cover anything required in the moment.

[flagged]

The opinion of Israel’s majority about the government would usually be measured by elections, not social media.

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#158
post #117
post #60

I don't feel good about this at all, but please keep in mind that there is still serious independent journalism in Israel. And it's doing very well. For example I can recommend pretty much anything published by Haaretz, or Barak Ravid. We should monitor the health of their domestic media should things start going un-democratic there. After all nothing can replace domestic media, this is painfully clear in the case of…

There are also many other foreign journalists in Israel. Other than Al Jazeera there are no restrictions on foreign media from operating in Israel. Certainly not western foreign media.

https://theconversation.com/how-israel-continues-to-censor-j...

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#159
post #137
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other extreme, Are media that spread misinformation without any due process are just protected indefinitely? Like in this very recent case: https://honestreporting.com/damage-done-how-al-jazeeras-fake... Edit: haaretz link: https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/2024-0...

Are you saying that every news outlet that reports false claims by eyewitness accounts which turn out not to be true and aren't sufficiently loud about retractions should be banned by their host countries? Because I can think of quite a number of stories over the years, and even in terms of this current conflict in the Middle East, where there were falsehoods in the fog of war or even intentionally seeded that turned…

> that print things you don't like

But that the whole point. It's not just that Israel "don't like it". It's false claims.

> aren't sufficiently loud about retractions

And what if there are no retraction? only if the backlash is big enough? Like in the case where there were no hundreds of dead in a direct bombing but a 50 dead in a failed PIJ rocked on hospital:

https://archive.is/r6noB

and the same version today:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/10/16/israel-ha...

Re: Israel shuts down local Al Jazeera offices

#160
post #117
post #60

I don't feel good about this at all, but please keep in mind that there is still serious independent journalism in Israel. And it's doing very well. For example I can recommend pretty much anything published by Haaretz, or Barak Ravid. We should monitor the health of their domestic media should things start going un-democratic there. After all nothing can replace domestic media, this is painfully clear in the case of…

There are also many other foreign journalists in Israel. Other than Al Jazeera there are no restrictions on foreign media from operating in Israel. Certainly not western foreign media.

There are indeed restrictions on western foreign media.

"Like all foreign news organizations operating in Israel, CNN’s Jerusalem bureau is subject to the rules of the Israel Defense Forces’s censor, which dictates subjects that are off-limits for news organizations to cover, and censors articles it deems unfit or unsafe to print. ... the military censor recently restricted eight subjects, including security cabinet meetings, information about hostages, and reporting on weapons captured by fighters in Gaza. In order to obtain a press pass in Israel, foreign reporters must sign a document agreeing to abide by the dictates of the censor."

https://theintercept.com/2024/01/04/cnn-israel-gaza-idf-repo...

https://theintercept.com/2023/12/23/israel-military-idf-medi...

Post reply on HN